I have no idea how niche I am, but I wouldn’t want to date anyone who is ok spending $200 on a date. Lets walk in the park and talk for hours. That’s my kinda date.
You think thats bad? Twitter is trying to start a movement of women remaining single till they die.
Tbh its kind of sad…
Twitter is trying to start a movement of women remaining single till they die.
if you mean twitter is so fucking gross it completely puts women off of dating, that might be accurate…
You shouldn’t spend any money on her until you’ve had sex, so she doesn’t feel pressure to put out after an expensive dinner. Ideally, she should put out before the date even begins, just to make her feel more secure.
This feels like the PUA equivalent of giving a dog a pill in peanut butter, you’re killing me XD
Relatively new to dating via apps as an elder millennial freed from a life time of monogamy. (Only been at it 6 months)
Who are these people who want to go on a first date that involves being in a situation like a restaurant?
Seems like with apps people skip the whole courting thing and jump straight in to something that should only be for once you get to know each other a bit better.
For me, first meeting is a coffee or a drink at a well populated cafe or bar. Maybe a walk after somewhere busy in the city.
Maybe I’m just old and out of touch.
For me the getting to know you was chatting on the app, I chatted with my now fiance for a few weeks before we actually met up at a restaurant, I felt like I knew him well enough that a restaurant was fine
Glad it worked out for you.
But I can’t help but wonder what if when you met in person it wasn’t what you were expecting?
Would it have felt like a waste of texting effort?
all dating is a waste of effort. some people get lucky, some people just go on endless dates that go on where, or get into relationships that go no where.
if you find a LTR or get married or whatever, you’re not dating anymore.
but without that “waste of effort” they wouldn’t have gotten that long term relationship or marriage.
going for a coffee or a walk was never a popular thing to do on a dating app. it only ever was during the pandemic when everyone had to be outside
going for a drink or dinner or an activity, was. all my first dates are drinks, movies, food.
it’s just that going out 5-10 years ago was cheap, now it’s expensive. but that’s true of everything.
A movie seems like a terrible idea for a first date, you spend all that time watching the movie instead of actually focusing on each other. Coffee is one of the best things to do.
it’s actually good, because you have a shared expereince to talk about after.
you don’t watch the movie and go home. you TALK about the movie.
So the first date is like a 3 to 4 hour affair minimum? Coffee can be as short as an hour, and I can dip after 15 if it’s not going well. Much more time efficient
No? It’s like an 2-3 hours. Most movies that aren’t marvel movies are like 90m long, then you chat for an hour over a drink or food. then you go home.
i dunno where you live, but most restaurants/bars here are very fast because they are tryign to turn over customers as much as possible. most coffee shops have a 15-20m seating limit now too. you can’t just order 1 coffee and sit there 2 hours and if you spend 2 hours for a single drink the wait staff will ask you to leave.
The person you’re dating doesn’t interest you?
most people I meet are not interesting, no.
But that’s why you go on the date, to see if they are interested or not. And one way to do that is to see how they react to a shared experience. Or you find out they hate what you love.
There are so many things you can do with a partner that don’t cost money and will make permanent memories.
Running though the streets at 3:47 with a big knife and 5 dollar mask from pop up Halloween store
AM or PM?
24 hour clock is the standard so AM
Cucking. Gloryhole. Orgy. Swinging.
Yeah but on the first dates you gotta try to impress a little right, don’t want to come off as too poor or cheap (depending on circumstances, 2 students in exact same situation is different than older working adults, for example)
This feels like a capitalistic idea to convince people thay they need to spend money to find a partner or people to be with. Dating can have many forms and you can get to know people in many different places. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to talk to people in hobby groups or go take a walk/drink a coffee with someone
If the girl is impressed by how much you can spend on food is it really worth impressing her at all?
Wait till you hear about engagement rings!
“wHy ArEn’T tHe YoUnGeR gEnErAtIoNs GeTtInG mArRiEd AnD hAvInG cHiLdReN??”
marriage and children is more expensive than dating, by far. full time childcare costs are 2-5K per kid, for about 4-5 years before they can get into kindergarten. if one partner makes less than 50-75K, it makes no sense for them to work.
nordic nations with lots of subsidies also have kow birthrates
if you give women choice, (education, careers etc) they mostly choose 0, 1 or 2 kids at most, all of those choices are below replacement. For every woman choosing 0, you need another choosing 5 just to stand still.
If you take away choice, keep women mostly at home, use religious indoctrination (quiver full) and insist upon a patriarchal society sans birth control you’ll raise the birthrate. It’s why many conservatives are starting to talk about banning birth control, where once they frowned on teen moms, they’re now advocating for it.
True, but unless you or your partner are against the very idea, most prospective relationships start with dating, then are moving toward marriage, children, or both.
some well-off professionals in nyc, have basically started ‘plantonic co-parenting’ arrangements.
as in, two well-off couples produce a child, but are not romantically involved, the child is basically a small business they co-own and invest in… and the child is not a product of love, but a product of financial investment of each partner…
basically child production without dating, marriage, or any personal relationship between the parents.
that’s where we are today. the concept of a loving family is now being replaced by purely transactional relationships that are treated as business arrangements. can’t wait to see how those children turn out… but hey at least they will have trust funds for their lifelong therapy about why mommy and daddy didn’t love them or each other, or anyone but themselves. and mommy and daddy will probably also want them to be good little business executives who have no soul anyway, because having human attachments would get in the way of their work-life and their corporate ladder climbing!
This article draws all the wrong conclusions from the design of the survey itself. That’s the average date expense, for all single people, to include:
- Rich people who don’t mind paying more for dinners out.
- People who have been dating a long time, on their later dates with someone they’re already steadily dating and/or fucking.
- Other expenses of a date, to include hair and makeup and other styling.
Digging into one of the surveys discussed in the article shows that the cost of a first date has climbed to $93.
$93 is more in line with what I’d expect. And yes, that price tag can price a lot of people out of bringing someone they don’t know well yet on a formal sit down date.
I went to look up the menu at the place where my wife and I had our first date, in an expensive city. If we ordered what we ordered that night, except with today’s prices, I think we would’ve spent about $30 on food, $50 on wine, and 30% on tax and tip for a total of about $105. We also split the tab. And that’s with someone who I had already met in person in a few places (friends of friends), had already established rapport over the phone, and already knew that we both loved the restaurant we were meeting at.
Obviously we need more cheap/free third places in the mix. And our society would benefit from better income/wealth equality. But while we live in this current situation, people should be generally be ramping up in closeness before spending real money on dates in places they wouldn’t have otherwise gone to. I couldn’t imagine spending real money before getting to know someone at least enough to know whether I like them and enjoy being around them.
The world isn’t like that though.
The reality of the world is most people want to meet at a bar or do an activity, and that costs money. And men are expected to pay for the dating. Splitting the tab is now very rare. People are a lot more traditionally sexist than they were 10-20 years ago.
I date. Most women want to be wined and dined, or they want to do a trendy activity date. Even if I take a woman out to a museum and a glass of wine, it’s going to run me $100. Museum tickets are 30-40 dollars pp, and the wine is going to be 15-20 a glass.
Women I met used to offer to split, but that basically stopped happening post pandemic. Now they never offer to split. I’ve also noticed surge in women demanding traditional gender role dating both in person and on dating apps. Nobody is a feminist anymore like they were 10 years ago. They all want ‘masculine men’ and they want to be ‘feminine women’. A lot more women I meet now are now asking me if I am ‘actually straight/gay’ now too. No woman was asking me if I was gay 10 years ago. Gender expectations have changed and regressed.
Article is talking about the dating world, as it is, as of 2026. Not how it used to be, not how it ought to be.
You’re living in a prison of your own making. I hope you escape one day.
yeah, I’m also impinging that gas prices aren’t 5 bucks a gallon right now. it’s totally a figment of my imagination!
if i just think different, they were magically be 3 bucks again.
You’re completely missing their point friend. You think you HAVE to spend $100+ on a date and that’s “just reality”. You could go on a date for free if you really wanted to. But no, you HAVE to spend $100+ for a date you don’t have a choice you NEED to spend $100+ or nobody would ever agree to go on a date.
We’re all living in prisons of our own creation cuz we get an idea in our head and think that’s how it HAS to be.
do you date?
nobody goes on free walking dates dude. at least proper adults. that is a construct your in your head.
last time i went on a ‘walking date’ i was a in my early 20s. yeah it was fine back then. 35 year old women dont’ wanna go for walks in the park, they want to go on a proper date.
I can see the guard has those gates firmly shut and chained. Hoping you can get out some day.
And fyi, I went on a 3 hour walk in a park with my now partner on our first date. Getting to know someone is the most important part of a date and you can do that for free, if you would only believe that you could. Maybe the people you are trying to date don’t want to do things like “go for a walk” or “get to know the other person”.
cool, was she a 40 year old woman in 2026 at that time?
No? Gee it’s almost as if you are projecting your past experiences into the present/future.
just like when grandpa used to talk about marrying grandma and popping out 3 kids the time he was 24. that is nice and all, but it’s not 1956 anymore. it’s 2026. nobody in their sane mind in 2026 thinks teenagers should be marrying at 17/19 and popping out 3 kids. the world has changed.
just like 20 years ago nobody had computers in their pockets and social media didn’t exist.
lecture me all you want grandpa about how it ‘should be’, it won’t change the fact it’s 2026 and this is how the world works today. i suppose you think a new house should only cost 5,000 dollars too? i got a newflash for you, homes now cost well over 500K and new ones are closer to a million dollars. clearly that’s my fault, the prison of my mind is what is making housing prices so high… if only i had a ‘positive attitude’ homes would be magically be 5000 dollars again! or my income would be 500K a year! clearly it’s a personal failing of mine, not at all the economy or market conditions over which no single person has any control…
I think this guy drives a truck he struggles to afford…
i drive a hatchback that gets 40mpg. the women i meet want me to drive a gas guzzling truck, because it’s ‘masculine’.
the point you don’t understand is you can’t create reality around you by thinking happy thoughts.
reality exists whether you acknowledge it or not. buying a different car won’t change the basic economic facts of reality that govern the cost of things. i can choose not to ever eat out, but the prices of restaurants will not change because i eat there or not, they will continue to rise and many people will be happy and eager to pay them.
the women i meet want me to drive a gas guzzling truck, because it’s ‘masculine’.
well, that’s me fucked,i drive an ecar I charge of my solar panels, i also have and prefer my ebike
but to be fair, I don’t need to tilt the front of my seat up on my bike to have it mash into my balls for ball maxing
as theres noting more masculine and ball maxxing then making your own fuel :)
it’s fucked, but what isn’t in 2026? our government is fucked, our economy is fucked, dating is fucked.
A lot more women I meet now are now asking me if I am ‘actually straight/gay’ now too.
wot ? do they ask you if you’re vegan while you’re eating a steak ?
They all want ‘masculine men’ and they want to be 'feminine women
why are we dating and not fucking ? :)
Article is talking about the dating world, as it is, as of 2026. Not how it used to be, not how it ought to be
indeed.
i read books, i cook, my apartment is very clean. i have a pet cat. it makes them uncomfortable that I do these things.
women think this means you are not a real straight man. real straightmen can’t cook, they don’t eat, and they are gross and dirty and they have a dog.
literately have had more than one woman over to my place tell me it creeps her out that my place is too clean and i must have maid service, so i say no i just like to keep it clean, and they immediately get upset. probably because they hire a maid service and are slobs.
Move, maybe? Do you live in a red state?
I live in Boston. I love it here. I own a home and it’s the best living here.
I’m not moving just to get laid more. Thanks.
Surprised you’re running into so many gender-trads in Boston.
Then again, rent in Boston is crazy; maybe it’s not manliness, but that they are looking for breadwinners? Men with beacoup bucks don’t clean. You said you drive a practical car, not a status symbol. Dogs with pedigrees are expensive. Etc.
People in Boston are socially conservative. They are mostly center-right democrats, not progressives. They like Hillary Clinton, and they HATE Bernie Sanders. They hate poor people just as much as the republicans do, they just don’t hate them based on race or sex, they just hate them for not being rich and going to elite colleges.
I’m a progressive, and yeah most women here are turned off by that. They want a traditional guy who will pay their bills for them so they can quit working and travel with his money. And yes, they all have $10,000 dogs.
My dog is a $200 rescue dog. So was my cat. If i don’t clean my apartment would be disgusting from all the fur covering everything.
I’m not going to pretend that I understand everything happening to today’s young daters, but what you’re describing isn’t true in my circles (which skew older and richer, but where the people going on dates are more likely to be divorced and/or have children from prior relationships, but where $200 on a weeknight dinner is not unusual or a financial stretch).
More importantly, I still stand by my description of how the article mangled the underlying studies. Dating can be expensive, but not everyone who goes on a $200 date in that survey is going on a first date with a stranger, and $93 is probably a better metric to follow to understand what is happening.
The rest of my comment is just a description of what I believe will both reduce the amount of money spent on first dates and increase the expected value of that date by deferring any decision to spend any money by only going on dates with people you already kinda know and already like. If you don’t believe that advice is practical for your current circumstances, I’m sorry to hear that, but I wonder if you can find another way to achieve similar effects.
i can’t change the world around me anymore than i can lower gas prices.
So I finally feel motivated enough for once in my life to get fit but still can’t smash. Got it. Might as well just retreat into a mountain and isolate myself from society for good. No point at insisting on the charade at this point. I’ve been long beyond my 20s and still have the salary of a 5-years ago college grad. FML
you need take your effort for fitness and put it into raising your salary
Wait, you guys are getting dates?
i get a few dates a month, yeah. it’s easy. just be tall and look rich.
just be tall and look rich.
Well… shit.
fake it until you make it.
Last year I went on many dates and the average expense was like $25. Yes, I did sometimes go out to restaurants, but they’d be either coffee shops with food or fast casual places. And yes I pay for her meal too. How are people spending $200 on a night out?
Wait it’s the average vs the median probably. A couple extreme outliers are inflating the average.
Probably the old standard dinner and a movie. Assuming $20 for a main (x2) $10 drinks (x2 to 4) $15 show tickets (x2) maybe a $20 snack that’s already over $100 and I low balled all of those prices. It could easily hit $200 especially if this is looking at larger population hubs.
Took my wife out for almost this exact date last weekend. Dinner was $45/ea for the main, $9/ea for drinks. Plus tip. Local live theater show was $40/ea. Skipped snacks because we were full from dinner. All-in, the night was just over $200.
Yeah it’s typically 30-40 main and 15 per drink for me as well but with kids we rarely go out so that’s a splurge. Also didn’t include child care but since this was primarily about singles I didn’t think it was as relevant. Parking also isn’t free a lot of the time and that could be another 10-40+depending on the city and events going on.
Man life is too expensive.
Hear Me Out: This capitalist/traditional attitude towards dating radicalized men into the manosphere. For the last three years this anti-“modern women”/anti-feminism movement has been rising across the internet; and about 75% of their resentment is just about distaste toward dating apps and paying to take a girl out for dinner.
For years I was laughing at ( and then after they helped Trump’s re-election, ripping my hair out over ) their complete refusal/inability to see any other alternatives to connect with people besides the most shallow idea of a date. Perhaps these folks just completely unimaginative, or have no personality to offer, and nothing to provide besides the traditional chivalry of this generic “provider” fallback that is unfeasible for most in this economy.
I wish I could just sit down with one of these men, and just ask them “Why not find women elsewhere?”. Delete the dating apps and go find a hobby, join a volunteer organization. If you’re such a “traditional conservative masculine man”, go to a Catholic church or alt-right fascist rally. It’s a whole lot cheaper than flying abroad to sugar-daddy at a favorable exchange rate. (Passport bros)
Though… the article does say: “More than half of Gen Z adults reported spending $0 a month on dating in a 2025 Bank of America Better Money Habits survey.” and mentions folks rejecting dating apps because they prefer real interactions…so maybe folks are waking up.
Why not find women elsewhere?
This is the same vibe as “go hand out your resume in person”. I’m old enough to remember when most people didn’t have dial up. Things have changed.
He gave a couple good ideas, join a service group, take Salsa lessons, go to local events. There’s a tree planting event in my community this week. You won’t meet people if you go once, but if you keep going people will recognize you. This is called “making friends” and sometimes that leads to romance. Things in your community still happen like the olden days.
Sounds like you have some experience here. Would you like to share more about it? How long have you been doing this? How many dates has this resulted in? How many relationships?
Well, I’m married so it worked at some point. I’m involved with my community and the community is your dating pool. The other guy is right in a sense, it’s mainly coupled people you meet at events but the more people you meet the more people meet you. You have to make friends before you make lovers. My wife and I have absolutely tried setting up people we’ve met with people we know. My personal opinion is that people who “never meet anyone” are probably assholes and people steer clear of them.
Okay well you didn’t answer any of my questions.
Well, I’m married so it worked at some point.
How long ago was that?
i actively volunteer for the past ten years. single people dont’ go to these things. it’s all married people. making friends doesn’t lead to romance, it leads to making friends with people who have no interest in dating you because they are already coupled.
it’s also time your spending not pursuing romance, which means less time for that. dating takes a lot of time and effort. it’s not magic, it’s more like exercise. yo uahve to be constantly exercising to stay in shape, and you have to be constantly dating and pursuing romance if you want romantic life.
Wow… please don’t take this as an attack, it is not intended as one. Your post made me seriously sad. I couldn’t imagine living a life where I had to treat dating and romance as “exercise” and something I have to plan into my calendar.
I hope you find what you are looking for.
it’s not any different with jobs. you have to constantly be on the hunt for a new job and working constantly beyond and above to get new skills if you want to remain employable. the day of getting a job and sitting back for 30-40 years and taking it easy are long gone. we live in a hyper competitive society, esp in the major cities. dating is the same, everyone is endlessly trying to ‘upgrade’ their dating prospects and if you aren’t ‘improving yourself’ constantly you are seen as a loser who deserves to be alone, just like if you don’t have multiple degrees or training certs at your job you are considered under performing.
10-15 years ago things were different. now, if i don’t get 2-5 new certs each year at my job, I’m considered under performing and if you want a raise, you better be getting that 5, 2 is the bare minimum effort. did i mention that the certs now expire every 2-3 years now? they used to be considered ‘lifetime’ but they ended that in the late 2010s, so they can keep the gravy train going. in 2010 when i was hired, having 2 basic certs was considered really great, now if you have 2 for a starting job, you are considered a failure and unemployable, you need to have like 6-10 to even be considered. oh ad the starting pay is like 15% more than it was when I started 15 years ago, even though the COL is now 2.5x what it was.
We are all working 3x as hard, for half as much as we used to get. Dating is the same. dating is a job market for romance. in my city, women expect you to typically making 200-300K a year to be even considered ‘worth’ their consideration. even though statistically, men in my city have an median income of 80K. so you nee to be making triple median to be considered a ‘date worthy’ guy.
i make about 150K a year, own a place, volunteer, have run my own small business, have two advanced degrees, active hobbies, very fit endurance athlete, etc. and when I go on dates i basically get asked why i am not more successful in life and that I lack ambition and drive and that my life is too ‘lazy’ because I’m not working 80 hours a week. also get told I’m ‘cheap’ because I don’t like going on dates that cost more than $200. It’s insanely brutal dating market. but i really want a family so I keep trying, but every woman who is interested in me basically expects me to be a multi-millionaire who has no life outside of work and dating her.
I’m an elder millennial that has and continues to do all of this shit they are saying in other comments, I still meet more new people regularly that I actually want to talk to again through dating apps. Third spaces are dead and people have over the past 10ish years stopped being interested in expanding their circle by happenstance. I’ll even admit to this myself.
In general we don’t trust each other, and there’s a very real chance that any person you meet could be a fascist even in left leaning cities. This has understandably made women especially more leery of the men they meet even when men are explicitly feminist because the men that hate women lie about their beliefs exacerbating the underlying problems even more.
People don’t understand that we’re not just experiencing political and economic collapse, the culture we all grew up learning how to live in no longer exists. This is a symptom of that
most ‘liberal’ women I have dated the past 5 years were closeted conservatives. don’t assume men are the only secret MAGAs
anyone of them with half a brain knows they have to lie about it to get other people to like them. every closeted conservative woman I have met never told me until like date 3-5, usually after we had slept together and she could let her guard down.
entirely seconding the rest of this. I am actively social in hobbies and volunteering. I have never ever met anyone to date that way. Everything is apps, and the occasional random approach at an event or bar or etc. Dating and socializing are two very different things these days. The last time i dated a ‘friend’ i met through other friends I was in college, 20 years ago. as am adult it’s been nothing but dating apps for most people I know, and the other people met someone at their job.
Wasn’t trying to say it’s just men, it’s happened to me with maga women, although I would imagine the rate is much lower from that subset. Lots of white women liberals that don’t give a shit about intersectionality or capitalisms role in their own oppression .
But we’re on the same page overall, dating is broken, some will still get lucky but it’s bleak out here. Unless it’s explicitly for single people to meet each other.
it won’t get better until the economy gets better, which, as we know, nobody seems to want to fix. they just want to make it worse so the rich get richer and the rest of society gets worse.
historically marriage and child rates are follow economy. when the economy improves people get married and have kids, when it’s bad, coupling and children rates plummet.
Things have changed especially because we all are becoming less social. Getting to know someone in person is still much more effective. Talking to strangers without pretense is however less accepted.
amen to that. even irl the level of presumption and pretense is insane. i quit a lot of social activities because i was becoming depressed dealing with the arrogant and delusion most people are living with about other people. I had so many occurrences of being going on rants about ‘people like you’ or bashing people who aren’t exactly like them. it was so miserable.
people were not like this 10 years ago. social media has warped their brains. people are so hateful and angry now.
Less tolerant, I also notice it with myself.
I love to read. I used to have cool dates talking about books. I haven’t had one of those since 2018!
Now when I talk about books, I get lectured what a racist male supremacist I am for not reading Toni Morrison or similar. (I had this happen to be like 10x times in the last few years) It’s insane. I can’t even enjoy my hobbies anymore without them being weaponized against me for not being ‘woke’ enough or something. Or I get told reading anything other than business self-help books is ‘a waste of time because it is not productive’.
God forbid I just… enjoy books because I like stories and it’s fun. No, now if you read it has to be for some political virtue signalling thing or for ‘self improvement’.
But it doesn’t though. Dating is something you do to find people to be with IRL. Dating apps are made to keep you engaged and noy to lose customers. If you want to find someone to be with IRL, you gotta look IRL and it helps going somewhere, where people have similar interests
datings apps are how you use them. if you ask people out irl, and they say no or ignore you, the app has nothing to do with that. it’s the person on on the other end not being interested.
They are statistically not made for actually finding someone. If they were they wouldn’t be profitable. The goal is always to keep people using the app and spending money. If you are straight, the ratio of men to women on the average dating app is skewed against you if you are male and in your favor if you are female.
Dating apps are just the way for capitalists to make money off dating
Cool, then why is that more the half of new couples meet on dating apps?
You don’t use apps. You don’t know what you are talking about. It’s not a conspiracy. They are free. I don’t pay for any apps and I regularly get dates from them. Do most women who message me, not meet up with me? yeah, because they aren’t interested in me. That’s their choice.
If i only did in person dating, I might go on one bad date a year. at least with apps I get way more dates, and half of them are decent, even if they don’t go anywhere. i went on like 20 dates last year, a few were bad, but 18 were from apps, and one of them became a short term thing for a month, but we were not politically or financially compatible so I stopped seeing her, plus she hated my cat.
How are dating apps still a business if they are made to lose their customers?
I don’t think they would still exist or be profitable for the companies owning them if they were actually good at getting people together.
I think more than half of the new couples meet on dating apps because the opportunities to meet people IRL have been heavily reduced since the pandemic.
they sell your data. they sell ads. they have optional features you can extra for that are expensive and some people use them. i have been using dating apps for 15 years now. they haven’t changed that much. it’s just that they are all swipe apps on your phone now. but the business model has been the same since the 2000s, it’s basically freemium service like free to play online games are. and it’s profitable because while the vast majority never pay, the small number who do, spend a lot, and are called ‘whales’. the business model is all about getting the whales. people like me, who have never paid once in a 15 years, aren’t really making them any money.
again, you clearly dont’ use apps and you’re just making stuff up.
Then stop going out for dates. Who convinced you that capitalism has to be a third wheel on your dates? Y’all too dependent on market capitalism to provide for you.
Where are they gonna go? We destroyed most of our third places, or made them so expensive to extract maximum profits.
Dinner is expensive, movies are expensive, small friendly local shops have been disappearing in favor of sterile corporate ones.
For a lot of people the only option would then be a home, which doesn’t work great for a lot of reasons.
My first date with my husband, we went for a walk at a park…
Edit: whoever replied I have you blocked already, so have fun, I cant see your comments.
Yeah, my partner of 10+ years went on multiple dates to museums, parks, and botanic gardens in the first month. We ate delicious Mexican food after, all super cheap.
This was great because now it’s a tradition for us to go to museums on every vacation.
museum entry where i live is $50 now. yeah 15 year ago it as $15-20. i used to get a yearly membership for $60, now that membership is $200.
mexican dinner used to be $10, sure, but now it’s $15-20 for a burrito at a cheap place, and a nice sit down mexican place is going to be $25-30 for a burrito.
so many people here are out of touch with how dating and going out costs are in 2026. you are living 10-20 years in the past.
cool. every first date i have had in the past decade ended with the suggestion we go to a very expensive restaurant afterwards suggested by her, and when I decline or suggest a more modest place she gets very angry about how I have ruined our nice date.
nice walks isn’t a thing most single women are interested in anymore. it’s regarded as ‘not making an effort’, and effort is regarded in the expense of the dates. even bowling, axe throwing, are now the ‘casual cheap date’, but those are all expensive now. renting a bowling lane in my city is $50 per lane per hour. add some cheap beers and food and boom it’s over $100.
Non-matinee theater prices aren’t that bad. Just don’t load up on giant ass overpriced popcorn and sodas.
Coffee dates are a thing. They’re expensive for coffee, but if you break a hundred at a coffee shop, you’re probably going to the hospital.
Public parks exists. Ice skating rinks aren’t that expensive. Book stores.
Ice cream!
Pizza places have somehow stayed inexpensive.
Hell, the gold standard first date: getting a beer at a bar is not that expensive, still.
If your only idea for a date is a high end fancy ass multi course dinner, with cocktails, then yeah, you’re gonna have issues…
Those aren’t dates. those are friends/family activities.
How many women think it’s romantic to take her to a movie at 12pm for the cheap matinee show and then take her out for a $3 coffee afterwards? dating is about romance. romance is going to a evening film, and think a nice dinner afterwards. she wants you to take her away fro a weekend to a nice bnb in the coutnryside or a beachhouse, she wants to go traveling with you to another country.
You know how enjoys 12pm movie and ice cream dates? my nephews when they were children. women don’t want to be treated like 6-12 year old children. they want to go on adult romantic dates. and those are expensive.
yeah, after we are married and pop out a kid or two, i’m sure she’d like a 12pm movie and going for ice cream, but that’s not courtship.
this is what people don’t get.
20 years ago you could go to a movie and dinner for $20 and walk around the city and do free stuff.
Today it’s $150 bucks and you can walk around and look at homeless bums in the park, because all the free arts programs are mostly gone, because the artists all need to make money to pay rent.
LIFE HAS CHANGED. nothing is cheap anymore and free stuff is far more limited, but people’s expectations for life have not changed. they still expect traditional 1950s lifestyles. including the aspiration for a single family home and two kids… but you have to be a millionaire to afford that lifestyle now.
“Hey baby, why don’t you come upstairs so we can avoid the capitalist machine of going out?”
most women aren’t socialist/archaist. they exist, but they are a tiny minority.
every punk show is like 300 dudes and 10 women.
I was ridfing on the idea of “dating” being capitalist because it’s expensive sometimes by implying that sex is cheap.
shitty sex is cheap. good sex is expensive
Holy shit. And here I thought that the price of a cup of coffee was less than $10.
Because that’s what you do on a first date - coffee and chat, either at the coffee house or on a walk near it.
Spending $$$ on a first date is a great way for any guy to get hosed, and just sets up unrealistic expectations. You don’t do anything expensive until several dates in, once compatibility and mutual interest have been confirmed.
coffee house dates are awful. they are not romantic or and they are in the middle of the day so you have to go on a weekend.
coffee places are not open at night during the week anymore.
Coffee house dates are realistic. Many places are open well into the evening, especially chains. And while privacy isn’t high, neither is the cost.
And the point of a first date is not to spend money, but to gauge compatibility and interest.
Any guy that spends big bucks on the first date is setting himself up for failure by putting up a high bar that the woman is loathe to go beneath in the future. He will be caught in the “dancing monkey” trap, forced to implement ever more expensive displays just to stay above that bar.
By keeping the bar low in the beginning, a man filters for quality and substance and against being treated like an ATM. Those women who are just foodies or who have unrealistic expectations self-select themselves out of contention, leaving only the serious, well-adjusted, pragmatic, and realistic women still at the table.
That’s a ridiculous amount of money to spend.
Most of my first dates were like
- walk to bar ($0) or subway ($3)
- a drink for both ($10 - $30)
- transit back ($0 or $3)
Even two drinks wouldn’t probably break the $100 barrier.
There are cheaper options, too. Coffee. Park walk and snacks. Free museums.
I didn’t have much trouble meeting people on the same page.
Edit: a full ass dinner date is a terrible idea for early dating. Don’t go on early dates you can’t quickly bail on.
where do you live there are 5 dollar drinks and 10 dollar cocktails?
I live in a major city. two beers is $20 before tax and tip, two cocktails is closer $30. bar tenders in my city expect 25-30% tip, and tax is about 8-9%, and many places start a 5% service fee now. So you’re adding 40% extra costs, so that $20 for two beers is now $30, easy. Two cocktails, is $50.
When I go out, by myself, and get a hamburger and fries and two beers, at a dive/cheap place, it’s $60. Even a fast food joint, with no alcohol, it’s $20-30 for a hamburger, fries, and a soda. If I go to the nice gastropub style place, it’s going to be closer to $75-80.
Even a burrito is $15 now.
Brooklyn, where there’s a couple local bars I like. My favorite bar has $5 cans, but the more recognizable drinks are in the $10-$15 range. Two drinks is about $30, then.
What part? Certainly not park slope.
That’s like 30 minutes with a mid-tier escort.
How do you know?
How do you not know? ;) j/k, but I think occasionally the prices do pop up in some posts or articles
Wow, I don’t know, like, some sort of, like, interconnected electronic information repository I can query?
I can even find out the atomic weight of gold! Let me prepare my stack of punch cards and I’ll being them to the data center tonight. I hope I don’t drop them!
